OUL at the The Left Forum 2017

This past weekend, June 2nd through June 4th saw the annual reconvening of the Left Forum. This years event was titled “The Resistance: Strategy, Tactics, Struggles, Solidarity, and Utopia.” As it has been for the past four years, the event was held again at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York in New York City. This event is billed and rightfully so, as the largest annual gathering in North America of the US and internationalist left. As in past years, somewhere between probably four and five thousand persons were in attendance. As always the attendees represented a broad perspective of experiences including but not limited to academics, activists and intellectuals.

Already posted on our YouTube channel for your consideration you will find seven separate session events plus an opening program from this years Left Forum.

These sessions cover a broad range of topics. Of particular historic interest for many Chicagoans is a program titled “Bob Lee, Peggy Terry, and the Original Rainbow Coalition” which covers organizing efforts conducted in the late sixties through the early seventies in Chicago in Uptown, that lead to the creation of a unique multi-racial organization that was (the Original Rainbow Coalition). While it did not last, it included at the time the Black Panthers Party, the Young Lords and the Young Patriots. The militant newspaper Rising Up Angry was also a product of this radical political ferment. As has been said many times before, you can always learn things from the past.